


Priced out of the market

by m_findlow



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 07:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17320928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_findlow/pseuds/m_findlow
Summary: The locals can spot a foreigner coming from a million miles away.





	Priced out of the market

Ianto looked incredulously at Jack, and then back at the shopkeeper. How much? Surely he must had previously misheard the first time. 'Five hundred dalvas? You can't be serious!'

'Five hundred dalvas,' the shopkeeper confirmed.

He looked back at Jack again. His face was not one of outrageous shock as he'd expected. Perhaps he'd gotten the conversion wrong. Jack raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say, "are we getting it or not?" 

'He's asking three hundred pounds for a thirty five ounce bag of coffee!'

'I heard the first three times,' Jack replied, shoving his hands in his pockets.

'But that's insane!'

'He'd trading in rare commodities. That's the price.'

'It's coffee. Not caviar.'

'Around here it might as well be.'

'We're not made of money, Jack.'

'We've got enough. And it's for essentials.'

'Essentially being swindled, more like. Well, we'll just find another vendor then,' he offered.

'You won't find one,' Jack confirmed.

'Then we'll try another market!'

'We're three hundred light years from the next closest trading outpost. You really want to go another two weeks without coffee?'

Ianto huffed and folded his arms. 'This wouldn't be happening if we'd bought the ship with the inbuilt fabricator.'

Now it was Jack who folded his arms. 'If I recall correctly, you were the one who complained that the fabricator coffee wasn't up to standard.'

'Which I would have put up with on occasion if I'd known that we'd be a zillion years from Earth and anywhere else that grew coffee beans!'

'And which I would have insisted on if I'd known you'd be this testy without coffee!'

'I'm not testy!' Ianto yelled back, not noticing the crowd that had milled about them, watching their row play out like a pair of street entertainers. A few passers by even tossed a coin or two at their feet.

'We're making a scene,' Jack said through gritted teeth, 'and not the kind I'd prefer.'

Ianto huffed again and eyed the bag suspiciously. It was cheap burlap, and the printing on the outside wasn't in English, so it wasn't from Earth. There was no telling where it was from, or even if it had started off in that bag, or had simply been poured in later. He had no idea if the shopkeeper had told him a fiction, and he wasn't about to open the bag and let him have a closer inspection of the beans. Even then, he wasn't sure if he would be able to tell.

He gave Jack a final look and then turned back to the shopkeeper, trying to salvage what little dignity was left.

'Four hundred dalvas.'

'Six hundred dalvas,' the shopkeeper countered.

'Six hundred!' Jack had never heard Ianto's voice go that high. It was quite funny. 'Four hundred and twenty.'

'Six hundred.'

'Four fifty.'

'Six hundred.'

Ianto was starting to lose his cool.

'Five hundred,' Jack offered. Ianto looked at him stunned.

'Deal,' grinned the shopkeeper.

Ianto begrudgingly parted with the money and took custody of the bag of beans. 'If this is some cheap robusta blend, I won't be happy,' he half said to the shopkeeper, and half addressed to the bag now in his arms.

'Well, I think we've learned an important lesson today,' Jack observed,

'Always make sure you're within two days distance of Earth, or else stock up when you're in town?' Ianto replied.

'No, that you're rubbish at haggling.'


End file.
